Zuni

2 minutes ago, Engvall’s Splinter said:

A great game? Wow. 

Absolutely.

Watch it back in detail, think of team instead of the individual. Look at his positioning, anticipation and unselfish runs for others.

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

I think much of that tweak was the inclusion of Andi Weimann as the LF / LW and his football nous to not hug the left wing and become isolated, but to form partnerships with his CMs and TC.  Not saying it was vintage Weimann by any stretch, but it helped the team imho.  Helped us pass it shorter, dialogue with James and TGH and Pring (his LB) and Knight (no10).

The above shoes the average pitch position Weimann when he made his passes.

The above shows his actual passes. Likes to drift infield.

The above shows where he received passes.

Sam Bell’s seasonal pitch map, I’ve manually drawn a yellow line around the highest concentration area.  A very different profile, a very different player too…but thought Weimann did a good team job.

I love a bit of a lop-sided formation, we played with an inside-left rather than a left-winger…I think it made quite a difference.

 

Weimann had a great game in his usual understated way.

He must be a coaches dream to work with

21 minutes ago, Sandhurst Red said:

This thread has the makings of a OTIB classic.

Mark my words there will be some humble pie being served in 6-12 months time. Manning has a tough job but we as supporters are so out of touch with modern football coaching in the main - we are the WORST people to determine he is the wrong person for this club.

Speak to people in the game and read up about Manning and based on who we are, it's a perfectly acceptable if not a very good choice for us. 

Too many on here are blinkered by football manager and 'names' that they fail to see, the game of football has evolved massively in the last 24 months. At professional level, it's being played in a way and system not seen before and some clubs will get left behind. 

NP was stuck in the old school approach (nothing wrong with that, if your thing) but we've actually gone and got ourselves a progressive coach, that develops youth and yet posters are besides themselves at who is coming in. 

I understand what a forum is for, but some perspective wouldn't be a bad thing. 

2 minutes ago, Redhed123 said:

That was what NP and Dave Rennie wanted, a team that could out run everyone.

It's not cross country FFS !!

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

A very simple, but very effective summary.  I’d add that at times we are young / inexperienced / not “game-mature”, which when you look at Alex Scott, he had all three, probably from the moment he made his debut.

FWIW, one of the attributes Nige wanted was runners because he identified that to play in the PL you need to be able to run.  It’s one of the key parts of the recruitment plan, hence Sykes, Knight, McCrorie types coming in.  Once you’ve got that, you can start adding “guile” (to use your word).  Shame we haven’t seen McCrorie.

Whether he was naive to think Scott might stay is open to debate, but he is a big loss, and has not been replaced.

We will get to find out won’t we?  Another week til QPR with Hines, Cisse, Ball, King (?) and Mountain, maybe Fleming (?) doing their stuff.  Hope to see just small percentages.

Yep, there were some obvious (and not so) tweaks on Saturday, definitely liked the more box/square midfield shape and more proactive approach. The sending off affected that though, it seemed to me ?

I do think someone in Mannings mould could affect positive changes quite quickly.

5 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Scheduled day off according to the Post.

They were in yesterday then, obviously.

21 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Watching us Saturday made me think we're just a team full of runners. There's very little guile about us which is why we don't score many goals. We'll run and run all day, we're all effort, not much quality though. Last season we at least had Alex Scott to sprinkle some quality, but without him?

Coaching

20 minutes ago, Harry said:

Yep. 
I’ve watched a number of championship teams this season who are streets ahead of us in terms of their style, their quality, their pace, their technicality. We are way behind a number of teams. We are being competitive because we have players with a fair bit of grit, determination, energy. But the way some other teams play - we are way off that still. 

Coaching.

1 minute ago, A Darkwood Red said:

Thanks (run out of reactions :laugh:)

I think Nigel accepts that more often than not he's not the beneficiary of the foundations he lays. I suspect he might even get a kick out of that, especially knowing that the fans will still hold him in high regard for the work he started.

Very possibly.

Just now, Supersonic Robin said:

Yepp, plus a nice long international break in which we might get some players back to full fitness.

Don't they all get 10 days off though ?

6 minutes ago, One Team said:

No, they jumped the shark with their decision and action on Pearson for me. It could’ve been done in a much better way. 

If the new person does well, great. But there is no saying Pearson wouldn’t have achieved that either. 

Also no saying that Holden wouldn't have got us back into the play offs (as we were) once he got all of his injured players back.

Ifs and buts.

8 minutes ago, RedRoss said:

Another I don't care but spent time posting another topic..

Another I'm expecting to be underwhelmed topic.. Surely results bad or good that will ultimately come in time is the only thing that matters?

Another topic to say regardless of the appointment it won't matter anyway as you don't trust the board..

I wanted Nige to stay, I'm not happy with the way it was dealt with but these dramatic posts are too much. 

1 hour ago, ashton_fan said:

I'm willing to give anybody a chance. Sometimes the underwhelming appointments turn out to be the best ones, and the flash appointments turn out to be disasters!

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Undoubtedly.

Do you know what frustrated me a bit yesterday?  Was how loose we became late in the game (back to that in a minute).  I was generally happy with us with the ball.  Each time we injected tempo with a first time pass, we looked threatening, breaking lines. creating overloads.  We couldn’t always do it…and tried to be patient.

In terms of stats, at quick glance our Match Tempo (passes per minute) was the highest of the season, but when you make 667 passes, 250 more than average, there is a tendency to pass for passings sake, so the data is misleading.  And those times we did inject tempo it made us look so much better than when we knocked it about in pedestrian style.  I think we lacked confidence, more than poorly coached, I thought there were times we could’ve pushed the tempo.  But generally I was happy we were trying to pass our way to creating chances.  That’s not an easy transition for a side like us, although TGH helps.

I also think we ended up after the subs with a lack of discipline in our side forwards roles, especially last 15.  Firstly I think Mehmeti did absolutely fine with the ball, and I think he works hard too, but he charged around a bit, and got bypassed by the clever Valentin, who Pring did well to contain.  On the other side Bell did little with the ball, bar the scuff that hit the post, but switched off without the ball.  Sykes got left on his own too often, which is crazy with a one-man advantage.  I’m not sure Sykes going to RB is that great an option anyway.  On paper against 10-men, I see the sense, with Tanner just back, but I don’t think it has worked that well for us.  Sykes influences better from RF.  I would’ve sooner seen JKL on.

That’s my thoughts anyway!

The midfield shape did look better on the whole yesterday, TGH was fantastic all game.

Weimann also did a great unselfish job for the team.

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

If players wages, we will be much lower than top-10.  SL said we were around the £18m last season, and we’ve cut further since then.

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

9 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I find that hard to believe.

What do we define as budget as well?

Costs of BCFC Holdings, cost of BCFC FC.

Football wages, wages plus amortisation and this hear for once, loan fee again may come under amortisation.

Do we include academy expenditure, what expressly is included.

The 5 with Parachute money are ahead for one. Birmingham have they cut back much this summer? Stoke have made a push.

West Brom I believe have a wage bill exceeding turnover, much of it will be the Football side.

Coventry have spent big albeit from a lower base. See Hull for similar.

Hard to say right now for sides such as Blackburn, Cardiff, Middlesbrough, Millwall, Preston, QPR, Sunderland.

Yes, agreed, definitely a bit of an ambiguous statement.

I would take it that he meant total money paid to players in wages and bonuses.

If this is indeed what he meant, I would think we are probably in the top 10.

23 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Out of interest, what do you mean by “under coached”?

Lacking in detail, pedestrian in pace of play, unorganised at times when out of possession, not passing with a purpose etc etc.

Not a terrible side but could be improved - IMO.

2 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

A top 10 budget doesn't sound credible to me or indeed any of us.

I expect it is about 12th-15th but I eagerly await the accounts for last season as a starting point.

I am not included in that.

I would think it very credible we are a top 10 budget.

17 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

You do have to wonder how having Kane in that squad, under AP would affect it. 
You wouldn't think it would make it worse.

There is the conundrum though, it actually could make the team worse.

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I loved the way he dealt with the Kane sale in the summer.  A fair dinkum Aussie.

He is getting more out of that squad of players minus their best individual player.

6 minutes ago, daored said:

But not the translator part

earlier post: Additionally, someone mentioned earlier that we might need a translator for our new HC, which wouldn’t be the case here as his English is excellent.

"most"

Jesse Marsch ticks most of these boxes.

3 minutes ago, steviestevieneville said:

I generally thought the players looked a bit flat tbh 

There were sparks here and there and I liked the new midfield shape, that ironically was less successful after the sending off.

19 minutes ago, Fuber said:

....? Can I ask why?

His Salzburg team (pre Leeds) were one of the best teams I've seen live (granted it was 2021 against Wien), with regards to entertainment.

He is a brilliant coach = what we need.

Some of our play yesterday still looked like we were under coached and a bit confused on the plan - IMO.

(first 15 minutes were excellent though)

36 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

It doesn’t though. If they believed what NP and the staff brought matched what they wanted he would still be here. NP had near 3 years to get what was wanted up and running. He didn’t and he is gone.
 

The sacking tells me we weren’t performing to the standard nor playing in the desired way. So why would we keep anyone from a failed regime? This isn’t NP leaving for a better job like Dean Smith leaving Brentford and Frank stepping in. They were successful we were not. Makes sense to start over. 

1 minute ago, Street red said:

Good luck with that there is now a big risk that the hard work getting a strong team spirit together is going to disappear. Please tell me why did it need to be swept clean? It's like cleaning a floor to a good standard  spending hours to get it right then that one person comes in with muddy feet!

Or maybe not.

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

I’m hearing Curtis Fleming (phlegm) has gone this morning.  Dunno if true, and will be a real shame for the continuity he could’ve brought, even if short+term, e.g. til Xmas.

But I suspect this was really a “sack all 4” but because of the need to put a team out they kept him for an extra week.

Thanks Curtis, gonna miss those dulcet Irish tones in interview, gonna miss the booming “quality” on the training videos, and his infectious love of football.  A bloke who’d openly admit he wasn’t the most gifted top flight or international player but was a top-pro.

All the best in your next job.

"New brooms sweep clean". Last thing a new coach wants is any of the senior coaching team hanging around in the background.

Sure fire way to get a split in the playing camp.

Sad as it is, get rid and bring in people he knows and trusts, as Pearson did.